The present disclosure relates to a guitar pick or other compatible components having a hard, wear resistant coating that has a low coefficient of friction.
Diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating is a nanocomposite coating that has many of the unique, most desirable qualities of pure diamond. With DLC coating, the value of such coatings accrues from the ability to provide some of the desirable qualities of diamond to the surfaces of almost any substrate. The most desirable qualities include high hardness, low coefficient of friction, high adhesive wear resistance, high corrosion resistance, fretting resistance, and great adhesion to substrate materials. For these reasons, DLC is particularly desirable for many tribological applications and that experience extreme contact pressure, both in rolling and sliding contact. As such, DLC is commonly used to prevent abrasive wear on razor blades and metal cutting tools, such as drill bits.
The growth of diamond directly on a substrate allows for the addition of many of pure diamond's most desirable qualities to other materials. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) can be used to produce a synthetic diamond coating by creating the circumstances necessary for carbon atoms in a gas to grow in crystalline form. It can take up to one month to produce a synthetic diamond by CVD. To retard the formation of built-up edges, CVD diamond coating can be employed due to its high chemical stability and the resulting low affinity to non-ferrous materials as well as the resulting low coefficient of friction. For these reasons, the use of CVD diamond is particularly desirable and such diamond films are commonly grown on valve rings, cutting tools, and other objects that can benefit from diamond's most desirable qualities, specifically its hardness, scratch resistance, and exceedingly low wear rate.
It would be desirable to produce a CVD diamond or DLC coated guitar pick with high wear resistance, high hardness, and an exceedingly low wear rate because, unlike a conventional plastic or composite guitar pick, a CVD diamond or DLC coated guitar pick does not absorb as many harmonics during an initial attack on a stringed instrument, which may allow for richer sound to be achieved. Such a guitar pick would additionally offer certain benefits since the guitar pick would be engineered for high performance and not subject to fail prematurely due to its exceedingly low wear rate.